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Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Shark Attack

In honor of shark week (which, if you were to infer from Facebook’s news feed, may as well be a weeklong national holiday) I’m sharing an experience unlike any other. I’m talking about that time I went shark fishing. Yes, that happened. This scaredy cat little girl got on a boat with group of friends and set out to wrangle in the ocean’s beastiest. Okay, let’s be honest. We all knew we weren’t going out for great whites, but I still boarded that boat with trepidation, having never been on such an excursion.

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Nervous laughter - Clearly

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We went for my friend Corrine’s birthday, and at the end of the night, I think we all agreed there was no better way we could’ve celebrated. Everything was taken care of by the crew, from bait and tackle to unlimited beer. Even a small dinner was included if we wanted to eat. As soon as we boarded though and were able to cast our lines, we were ready to get down to business.

The evening’s catch started off slow, but surely picked up as time went on. All in all, our group brought home four shark and a twenty-five pound Cobia, not to mention the smaller fish we caught and threw back in (or the giant stingray that got hooked on my line.) Everything we caught was safe to eat, so we stayed behind to have our haul cleaned by the crew before packing it in for the night.

The next day, our same group got together for a gathering referred to lovingly as Iron Chef: Shark. We each took a batch of the shark and prepared it in our own unique way. When all was said and done, our bellies were stuffed to the brim with shark and grits, shark burgers, Cajun shark bites, and grilled cobia, as well as a few key sides prepared fresh from the lovely birthday girl’s garden. It was all so incredibly delicious.

I contributed the shark and grits, which in the end can really be made with any type of protein, though my typical preparation includes shrimp. I’ll be sharing the recipe on the blog tomorrow, so keep an eye out for that.

In the end, I’ve got to say that this was one of the most fun excursions I’ve been on in a while. Anybody else out there ever been fishing for shark? Anybody else ever cooked with it?